Your Next-Door Neighbor Is a Dragon:. Zack Parsons
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leaned down to the speaker and loudly said, “I’m here to see Anders Zimmerman.”
“Ja! Shit, you don’t have to shout.”
The door buzzed and I hurried inside. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. The expansive ground floor was dusty and smelled of machine oils. Large presses or lathes of some sort were covered by plastic tarps. The overhead fluorescent lights and most of the windows were high and painted over. Thin beams of light were breaking through the crackling paint and in their shafts I’m pretty sure I could see asbestos particles.
A heavy door opened and closed somewhere far away inside the building. There was a loud click followed by a buzz as one by one the fluorescent lights switched on.
“Gutentag, Herr Parsons,” said Anders from very near to me.
I jumped, realizing the anthropologist had closed to within a few feet of me while I was staring up at the lights like a rube. He was a little shorter than me, a little older, but he had a youthful head of spiked blond hair that was thinning a little bit on top.
His facial features seemed drawn by gravity to his chin, which left a lot of empty real estate above his gray eyes and horn-rimmed glasses. He was dressed like a member of the merchant marine. He was a nightmare vision from a J. Crew catalog in a worn cable-knit turtleneck, ridiculous white canvas pants, and a pair of decaying army boots he had apparently inherited from a combat veteran.
“Hello,” I said, and shook his hand. “This is an interesting place you’ve got.”
Anders was given pause by my clicking handshake. He glanced at my gloved hand, a gift from Doctor Lian, before his internal monologue changed the subject. He surveyed the room as if just noticing it.
“Ooh, ja. This is old machine shop, leased very cheaply as long as I keep the machines. This is okay because zee chamber is in zee basement.”
Anders directed me toward another security door, this one in better repair and marked with three-dimensional chrome letters that spelled OFFI. I reluctantly followed him to the door, picturing zee basement as a rat’s maze of claustrophobic passages choked with rusty, steaming pipes and pressure gauges with needles vibrating in the red.
I calmed my nerves by reminding myself that I had braved the Twilight Zone episode that was Hermosa. I didn’t see a stray bunch of red balloons floating purposefully down the street. I didn’t have my face melted off by a pigeon. Hermosa was a way worse scene than some stupid creepy basement in a factory.
Fortunately, zee chamber in zee basement was nothing like I had imagined. We descended a perfectly normal enclosed staircase and passed through a door into an open and well-lit space. It looked more like an artist’s loft than a dank industrial basement.
It was almost the exact opposite of dank. It bordered on pleasant and warm. It was definitely clean. We were standing on cherry parquet flooring. There was a drafting table and stool and two Apple computers sitting atop two black Ikea desks. The desks were so new there were a few assembly stickers visible as we walked past.
The lighting was warm and sufficient, provided by a mixture of overhead lamps in brushed metal fixtures and standing lamps that seemed chosen to go along with a whimsical set of purple couches. I think I even heard soft music playing. Distant strains of Feist.
“Not vat you expected, ja?” Anders laughed, detecting my surprise. “Come, I show you zee chamber.”
The chamber was a separate room that resembled a racquetball court. It had three white walls, a white ceiling with starkly bright recessed lighting, and a one-way glass back wall and door. In the center of the room was a chair that looked like an ergonomic dentist’s chair. It was black and articulated, with a foot rest and padded armrests. It looked creepy, but also very comfortable. Good lumbar support.
I pressed my palms against the glass to get a better look and I realized that the white walls were not walls at all. They were made from floor-to-ceiling strips of a faintly iridescent white fabric stretched taught over a metal framework.
“What are the walls?” I asked.
“Ooh, you vill see.” Anders had taken a seat behind one of the Apple computers. “Come sit down. Vee must talk before you go into zee chamber.”
“I’m not going to sit down in there and end up on a beach talking to my space dad, am I?” I asked as I took a seat.
“No, of course not,” Anders said with complete seriousness.
He had somehow missed my insanely clever reference to the movie Contact. My opinion of him was plummeting.
“Before ve begin I must know vie you have come here to see zee chamber,” Anders said. “Vat do you vant to learn from me?”
“I want to learn why people become who they become on the Internet,” I replied.
Anders nodded.
“I want to know if the online personality is distinct from the person in the real world,” I continued. “Whether they create an idealized self or whether their environment shapes—”
“Ooh, ja, this is the key!” Anders interrupted. “Nature verzez zee nurturing. Do zee lonely become strange from seeking a sense of belonging or is it like-minded individuals they seek? Forget zee uzzer questions. Zee real question is when zee man is given a choice of identity does eet spring from zem or from zee surroundings?”
“Attraction versus actualization?” I asked.
“Ja, something link that. Und why do you think zee chamber can help you answer your questions?”
I wasn’t really sure how to answer. I wasn’t even sure about zee chamber’s intended purpose. I needed a starting point for my journey through the Internet’s subcultures and since I wasn’t going to be offering any insight I thought I could hijack some from a real expert. My search for an Internet sociologist, psychologist, or anthropologist in my area had eventually brought me to Anders Zimmerman’s fairly obscure work.
“I don’t know,” I finally said. “You claimed to be working on a diagnostic tool and I thought I could subject myself to it.”
“Nein,” Anders replied. “Not diagnosis. Experimentation. I am not a medical doctor, I am a researcher. I am observer. I do not treat.”
“So you tell me. How does the chamber work?”
“Ooh.” Anders stood. “You vant to find out, ja? First, some rules for you, Herr Parsons.”
He settled himself uncomfortably against the corner of his desk. I winced at the awkward pose. It looked as if it could lead to toilet problems.
“First and most important, zis is not a toy. Zee chamber is a complex scientific instrument and it is not an amusement. Not a joke. You said your book is funny, ja?”
“Oh, don’t worry.” I held up my hands. “My book won’t be funny at all. That’s just what the publisher thinks.”
“Ja, vell, no jokes. A joke could produce zee false result,” he scolded. “Und no getting up. Once vee start you must continue to zee end.”
“Why is that?”
“Zis is a complex process und once I start there is no shtopping. I see concern on your face, Herr Parsons. Do not fret, there is no danger to you. If you follow meine instructions nothing vill go wrong.”
Being told “there is no danger” and “nothing will go wrong” by a guy who sounds suspiciously like an Igor from a low-budget Frankenstein remake is not really reassuring. However, other than the slightly creepy chair the chamber did not look all that scary.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Ja, you are not epileptic, richtig?”
“Nope,” I said.
“Zen vee are ready, Herr Parsons.”
Anders